Of any consequence
"Word on the street is that you like college so much you think the rest of the world can just go to hell," said Brenner. Brenner is a smart aleck, the teacher all the kids talk to, a cynic with a soft heart. He listens to too much Carly Simon and reads too much Vonnegut. All the girls have crushes on him, and crowd his class after school gets out. I don't think I had a crush on him (really! I know you're all looking at me slantwise, and you can just quit that!) but I used to hang out in his room despite the fact that I never had him for a class. We had a healthy adversarial relationship - he would mock me and I would blithely refuse to notice. Or I would snort in mock indignation and laugh.
Word on the street. Brenner would know the word on the street. I felt almost pointless standing in his office; he knew that I really came back to school to see my English teacher from last year, and someone had already told him my college situation. It was still fun, I grinned while he talked to me. When he mentioned that his mother did an excellent job raising him, I curbed the sharp urge to tease him (and, I guess, put him down). I knew his mother was dying. I don't really want to say it. It was fun only because we refused to talk about certain things.
I realized that he was one of my favorite teachers, but I never knew him in a classroom.
I left Brenner to find my English teacher from last year. We did a mediocre job of keeping in touch - I sent her an ecstatic email from college saying how much I loved it, and she replied "my hearat sings for you." It was lovely and typical of her, even the funny typo, but it wasn't something I could reply to. It left things on not-awkward-terms, which is important. Friendships with teachers can so quickly and easily slip into the awkward, I'm beginning to realize.
I went walking with my old English teacher. We went into the old cow pastures that were sold to the city, and walked the perimeter of each field with her dog. "I fought a lot of fights this year," she said, "and so coming up to these fields in the afternoon always put everything back in perspective. Kept me sane, y'know?" Yeah, I knew, and we stood at the top of the highest hill for a while. There were all the old, blue hills in the distance, and she whispered under her breath "God created all this."
I put "God" in quotes sometimes, because it's just the word for whatever it is that made all the truly beautiful views of pastoral land, on clean autumn days, walking with an old friend. Simple, three letter word. Works for me.
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From The Awakening:
"She says queer things sometimes in a bantering way that you don't notice at the time and you find yourself thinking about afterward."
"For instance?"
"Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. 'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.'"
It's one of my favorite passages, but I still can't bring myself to quote it or anything. Whenever something comes up that reminds me of the passage, I dismiss it. My reasons can't possibly be valid, they can't possibly paralell Edna. I've never been as asleep as she was in the first place, so waking up can't ever be so drastic for someone to test my shoulder blades. And what soaring do I do above the level plain of tradition and prejudice? Precious little.
Right before I left for college, I told one of my friends that I had finally finished The Awakening. She exclaimed, "If there was anything we read in highschool, Marge, I would think that book would be the one you would like." Yeah yeah, this is true, the book is beautiful. "Plus," she said slowly, "I know you're really into bird imagery, aren't you?" I didn't really know what to say, but I think it was true of her.
Themes and themes, you know, I feel like I'm gathering a year of themes. Threads that have gone through my life over the past year, gathering them up, following how they've changed colors and textures but kept their integrity. It's funny, because I have selections from year in my life. Writing forces you to be selective, to separate out the thread from the greater cloth. I think about the bird I rescued way back in january. It makes me cry a little to read that old entry. It was such a little thing, saving that bird. It was such a little thing, I thought I would crush its heart.
2000-10-21, Of any consequence
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